Syria: Civilians to Be Allowed Out Of Homs - UN-Arab League

New York, Jan 26 2014 - The Syrian
Government has agreed to allow women and children in the
besieged Syrian city of Homs to leave "immediately", the
Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the
League of Arab States today said after a second day of
face-to-face talks in Geneva.

"We are going to inform our
people in Damascus, or we have already informed them about
this, so hopefully, starting tomorrow, women and children
will be able to leave the old city of Homs," Lakhdar Brahimi
told journalist at the Palais des Nations.

"I hope that
the rest of civilians will be able to leave soon after
that," he added, noting that the Government has asked for a
list of the men's names first.

The UN, along with the
International Red Cross and civil society organizations, has
also been discussing humanitarian access to Homs, with an
aid convoy on standby.

"There is an agreement now from the
armed groups inside that they will not attack a humanitarian
convoy if it enters Homs," Mr. Brahimi said.

The city
Governor was supposed to meet with his advisors and Damascus
today to agree on access to the town which has been
surrounded since last year by pro-Government forces.

He noted that despite a political agenda,
the two parties felt "that you cannot start negotiations
about Syria without having some discussions about the very,
very bad humanitarian situation".

Well over 100,000 people
have been killed and nearly 9 million others driven from
their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011 between
the Government and various groups seeking the ouster of
President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 9.3 million people
within the country need humanitarian aid, the UN has said,
with over 2.5 million of them living in areas where access
is seriously constrained or non-existent.

The joint envoy
met with both sides together this morning, then held
separate discussions with each in the afternoon -- a format
that is expected to be duplicated tomorrow.

In addition to
humanitarian concerns, today's agenda also included
detainees, prisoners and people who have been
kidnapped.

"The Government has asked the opposition to
give them the list of the people that are in detention in
the hands of the various armed groups," he said. "And the
opposition agreed that they will try and collect the lists
that have been asked from those organizations they have
authority over or contacts with."

He noted that "there are
unfortunately very many parties, and there are no contacts
with some of them, and therefore we will not know who are
the people being held by them and who died".

The talks are
expected to continue tomorrow with the two parties making
"some general statements on the way forward".

The goal of
the conference is to achieve a political solution to the
three-year-long conflict through a comprehensive agreement
between the two sides for the full implementation of the
Geneva communiqué, adopted after the first international
meeting on the issue on 30 June 2012, and since endorsed by
the UN Security Council.

The communiqué lays out key
steps in a process to end the violence. Among others, it
calls for the establishment of a transitional governing
body, with full executive powers and made up by members of
the present Government and the opposition and other groups,
as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led
political transition.

Mr. Brahimi said he is happy that,
in a general way, there is mutual respect in the
talks.

"God willing this mood that I mentioned will
continue and that we will make progress gradually," he
said.

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